Tips for writing effective sales copy

Research say that 80 percent of all people will read a headline but only 20 percent will finish the article or ebook sales page. So your words will be the most important part of your entire marketing strategy.

This means very word, sentence and headline should have one specific purpose — to lead your potential customer to your order page. So you will need to plan and get several opinions for your final copy.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when creating the copy and sales page

  1. Pack your copy with all of the benefits your eBook has to offer.
  2. Tell your potential customer exactly what your eBook will do for them.
  3. Identify a specific problem and promote your ebook as the solution. So over all – write to persuade.
  4. Your sales letter needs a powerful headline that will grab people’s attention.This headline might be in the form of a question that identifies a problem, or it may be an intriguing statement.
  5. Your headline is the most important part of your entire sales copy. If it doesn’t immediately grab your visitor’s attention, they most likely won’t read any further. So try out several headlines. Test them on friends and get their opinion. You will find that developing a great headline will take more time than writing your entire sales letter. It’s that important.
  6. Display your headline in a large, bold font. This will demand your potential customer’s attention and intrigue them to read on.

To keep the readers attention, use subheadings (headlines) throughout your sales letter. You may find that your best subtitle and the headlines what you did not use earlier. Your subheadings should provide highlights of each section of the eBook and capture the attention of those who are scanning your text. Again you will want to display your subheading in a large, bold font.

Here are a few more tips to help you create your sales copy

  • Write as if you were talking with just one person. This gives the sales page a personal feel.
  • Write your copy with passion and excitement. Let them know exactly what your eBook will do for them and why they have to have this.
  • Write your words so that they flow from your beginning headline through to your order page. Read your copy out load to see if you are creating this feeling.
  • Look at other copy and sales pages for you particular eBook topic. You do not want to copy their sales pages but it will give you ideas for what captures your attention or what doesn’t work for you.

Once you feel you have copy or a sales page that works get opinions.  Its always difficult to evaluate your own writing so ask others. When the copy is ready it’s time to set up your sales page and see what results you have.

Your eBook Promotion Blog

Your eBook is done and its promotion time. As I mentioned in an earlier article, blogging is one way to get the word out about your new eBook.

photo credit: dno1967

To be really successful using a blog you should set a blog up (or your sales page) using most or all of the keywords for your eBook. This way when people search for you title or your topic your site should turn up at the top of the list. And that leads to move hits and sales.

My new eBook project contains 4 books, all on Backyard Projects. My title for the group is “Easy Backyard Oasis Projects” So my eBook blog site is Backyard Oasis Projects.  My project also includes 4 mini eBooks, an eCourse and many freebies.

There are many people that will just add their eBook over to the side column or write an occasional article about it but the sales page is really essential to your site if you want the highest sales returns.

And a sales page can be created quite easily with a static page and a little help from an html program creator like NVU or Front Page. (NVU is a free program) Coffee cup, also free, is reported to be good, but I have no experience with the program.

You might also want to create a small mini-eBook to give away to create a buzz about your eBook or to set up and use an eCourse to introduce the top ideas that are covered in your book. You need a “buzz” to promote the eBook and get traffic to your site.

Tip: Care needs to be taken when generating traffic for your blog. You can post all about the benefits of your e-book on your own blog, but to get traffic back, you’ll need to consider finding blogs that are in your niche. You can comment on other related blogs, but the comment must be meaningful so its not considered spam.

Aside from the spam issue, commenting properly on other blogs will lead to others coming back to your blog to see if you’ve got any other information that they might be interested in. This will create traffic and increasing your status as an expert in a certain niche.

Traffic, buzz and a plan to get the information about your new eBook out to the public is your goal and a great blog, articles and a sales page are one of your first stepping stones in this process.

Other useful programs:

Blogging Beginners. This site helped me learn to build a site that would get traffic. There are free and paid programs in this program. I would not have numerous sites and be completing eBooks if it were not for the help and support I get here.

Marketing Beginners. Again this site has free and paid for programs to help people in numerous areas. I have recently used this to help me with my sales page and to make my own headers for my websites. (You can pay people to create your headers, graphics and even your sites, but being able to do this for yourself is an amazing feeling)

NVU:  A free html editor program used for creating pages and code.

Gimp: a free photo program for working with images. It works a lot like Photoshop.